Tangentenflügel
Alternate name(s)
- Tangent piano
Maker
Frantz Jacob Spath
Date1784 ca.
Place MadeRegensburg, Bavaria, Germany, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedOn wrestplank in front of the tuning pins, very faintly: Spath & Schmahl, Regensburg, 178[4]
MarkingsIn front of wrestplank (covered by fallboard) has handwritten gauge markings, aligned with strings, in ITALIAN: Giale[a]= brass strings; Biache= iron strings
Some numbering also on top of wrestplank.DescriptionThe action of the Tangentenflügel differs from the piano in that the strings are struck with wooden tangents, rather than piano hammers.Compass: FF-f3 (5 octaves)
Two hand stops:
Left: lautenzug (cloth fringe on a sliding batten)
Right: Pianissimozug (leather moderator)
Left knee lever: una corda
Right knee lever: dampers
Ebony-capped naturals. Front arcades of black-stained pearwood. Sharps of black-stained pearwood, covered with bone.
Walnut veneer
Spruce soundboard
Stringing: bichord throughout
DimensionsLength of case: 220 cm
Total height: 84 cm
Width of case: 97 cm
Height of playing mechanism: 67.5 cm
Height without lid: 25 cm
Thickness of soundboard: 2.5-3 mm
Three-octave measure: 476 mm
String length: c2: 307 mm
(Kelly measurements:)
Length: 2194mm
Width: 984mm
Overall height: 840mm
Height of case: 247mm
Spine thickness: 16mm
Double bentside thickness: 12mm
Case bottom thickness: 23mm
Total wrestplank thickness: 60mm
Keyboard:
Three-octave measure: 476mm
Length of heads: 40mm
Width of heads: 21mm
String lengths, striking points:
FF: 1744mm, 86mm
C: 1575mm, 74mm
c: 1050mm, 56mm
c1: 608mm, 38mm
c2: 307mm, 23mm
c3: 160mm, 14mm
f3: 122mm, 10mm
ProvenancePurchased in 1987 from Bernhard von Hünerbein, Cologne, Germany. Previously in a private collection in Berlin.
Published References"18th-Century Instruments Shown in Black Hills," Newsletter of the American Musical Instrument Society, Vol. XIX, No. 1 (February 1990), p. 23.
Clinkscale, Martha Novak. Makers of the Piano 1700-1820 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 271.
Kelly, Rodger S. A Catalog of European Pianos in The Shrine to Music Museum, M.M. Thesis (University of South Dakota: 1991), pp. 52-59.
Koster, John. “Among Mozart’s spättischen Clavier: a Pandaleon-Clavecin by Franz Jacob Spath, Regensburg, 1767?,” Early Keyboard Journal, Vol. 25/26 (2010), pp. 153-223.
Kuronen, Darcy. "Keyboard Instruments at The Shrine to Music Museum," Early Keyboard Studies Newsletter, Vol. VI, No. 1 (October 1991), pp. 7 & 10.
Larson, André P. Amadeus: His Music and the Instruments of Eighteenth-Century Vienna (Vermillion: Shrine to Music Museum, 1990), pp. 26-27.
Paolo di Stefano, Giovanni. "The Tangentenflügel and Other Pianos with Non-Pivoting Hammers," Galpin Society Journal 61 (2008), pp. 95-96, 98.
“Recent Acquisitions Await New Galleries,” Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 16, No. 3 (April 1989), p. 2.
Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1987
Object number04145
On View
On view
1790 ca.
